RAM prices increased by $329 a head at the annual Allendale Merino ram sale at Wellington on Saturday, September 24 when 58 of 60 rams sold at auction to $4400 and averaged $1729.

The sale of Tony and Penny Inder and family’s Pooginook daughter stud attracted many returning clients with 18 returning home with new flock sires.

Last year 69 rams sold to average $1400 and this year such is the popularity of the bright -woolled Merinos a further 20 grade rams were cleared after the sale.

Last week the Inder family purchased another stud sire from Pooginook stud, Jerilderie, while paying the sale’s top price of $15,000, an exercise becoming quite a trend by the Inder family.

Returning to buy four rams for a $3350 average including the $4400 sale topper were Anthony and Libby James, Springvale Pastoral Company, “Springvale”, Coolah, who are joining more than 3500 ewes of 18.8 to 20 micron and cutting up to six kilograms of wool.

The top ram was a 20 micron son of “Jess”, the 2013 top-priced ram of Pooginook stud sale, with the wool’s standard deviation (SD) at 3.8 micron and coefficient of variation (CV) at 18,8 per cent while $4000 was also paid for an 18.4 micron son of “Imi”, the 2014 Pooginook sale-topper, showing an SD of 3.5 micron and CV of 19.2pc.

Graham and Maree Colley, “Mountain View”, Hargraves, returned for their third time and purchased four rams for an average of $2900 and a top at $4200 for the 19.2 micron son of “Jess” showing an SD of 3.8 and CV of 19.2.

They join 1800 to 2000 ewes of 17 micron and are increasing wool cut.

“Now the younger sheep are on the ground from our first purchase and we can already see the difference,” Mr Colley said.

The turn in season at Cobar has Roger and Tricia McInerney of “Thule”, keen to get back into Merinos.

Although Mr McInerney just turned 86, age will certainly not stop him, so they bought 1000 Merino ewes from the Cunnamulla district during the drought and came to Allendale with old friend Don Macdonald of Macdonald Wool, Dubbo, who worked for them for eight years when he started out, to help in the selection to secure rams and left with eight averaging $1625 while paying to $2200.

Warren Croake, “South Meroo”, Meroo, returned for his fourth year to buy six rams at a $1300 average for his 1400 ewes of 18 micron wool for adults and 16 micron from young sheep.

John and Sandra Harding now at “Warragundi”, Goolma, have begun an Allendale blood flock and returned for their second year to take home six rams to $1800 twice to average $1433.

Larry and Helen Yeo, “Murrawega”, Gollan, returned to buy two rams for a $2000 average.

The sale was conducted for Allendale stud by Australian Wool Network and Milling Stuart, Dunedoo, with Angus Stuart the auctioneer.